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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
The "division" in the country is caused by the fact that Bush doesn't need the Democrats to implement polcy. At first he tried to work with them (working with Kennedy on the education bill etc) but when they got to demanding for their way, he could just ignore them because of the Republican control of congress. Everytime they took a hard line negotiating position, he drew an end run around them and worked without their cooperation. When they realized their powerlessness (and like any insecure person who doesn't feel they are getting respect) they got really nasty. The nastier they got they less he worked with them, and he could get away with it because he didn't need them.

For them to blame Bush for the divide is really ripe. It was like the Democrats critisizing Bush I for raising taxes, when they are the ones that forced him into doing it.

I'm posting the following not because I think I'm likely to persuade you or anyone else of what the author (Kevin Drum) says, but because I think there's some small chance that you will read it and hear a little better where Democrats are coming from on this one:

• My biggest disappointment of the past five years — the biggest by a very long way — has been the way that George Bush transformed 9/11 from an opportunity to bring the country together into a cynical and partisan cudgel useful primarily for winning a few more votes in national elections.
  
  Compare and contrast: FDR was surely one of the most partisan presidents of the 20th century, but after Pearl Harbor he announced that "Dr. New Deal has been replaced by Dr. Win the War." And he made good on that. World War II was largely a bipartisan war and FDR largely governed as a bipartisan commander-in-chief.
  
  And Bush? Within a few months of 9/11 Karl Rove was telling party members what a great issue terrorism would be for Republicans. Andy Card was busily working on the marketing campaign for Iraq, timed for maximum impact on the midterm elections in 2002. Joe Lieberman's DHS bill was hijacked and deliberately loaded with anti-union features in order to draw Democratic complaints and hand Bush a campaign issue. The UN resolution on WMD inspections in Iraq was kept on fire until literally the day after the midterms, at which point the version acceptable to the rest of the world was suddenly agreeable to Bush as well. Democrats who supported Bush on the war were treated to the same scorched-earth campaigning as everyone else. Bipartisanship bought them nothing.
  
  What else? Bush never engaged with Democrats in any way. Bill Clinton and Al Gore were both hawkish Dems who could have been co-opted early if Bush had had any intention of treating the war seriously. He didn't even try. He continued pushing divisive domestic issues like tax cuts and culture war amendments. ("Dr. Tax Cuts has been replaced by Dr. Win the War" would have been more appropriate.) He showed little interest in funding anti-proliferation efforts or working with serious Democratic proposals to improve domestic security at ports and chemical plants. The national security rhetoric from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the administration was relentlessly inflammatory and divisive.
  
  I think this is a complaint that most conservatives don't accept — even conservatives who have soured on Bush over the past couple of years. But believe me: on the Democratic side of the aisle, Bush's intensely and gratuitously partisan approach to 9/11 and the war on terror is keenly felt. Sunday's Republican Party photo-op at Ground Zero was just more of the same.